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Best-Seller Strategy Guides
TasosF writes "The New York Times published a feature on the strategy guide publishing. Strategy guide sales reportedly generated about $90 million in 2004, with the guide to GTA San Andreas having sold 748,000 copies to date." From the article "'It's like writing a travel guide to a place that doesn't exist,' Mr. Hodgson said. 'Whereas Frommer's guides tell you what hotel to stay in, I tell you which hotel not to stay in because you're going to get dragged down by a gangster.' By most measures, strategy guides are not a huge business. They generated about $90 million in sales in 2004, according to the NPD Group, a market research firm; the figure dropped to $67 million in 2005, but that decline was expected as a cyclical moment, paralleling a transition in the industry to a new generation of advanced game consoles."
Back when I was much younger (say, in my early teens), I'd buy the game and guide at the same time. I quickly learned that doing so completely ruined the fun of playing the game. Instead of learning what to do and exploring, I'd just flip to page 3, get the answer, and continue. It's like gaming on autopilot.
Now I still get the occasional guide (or use GameFaqs, as has been mentioned to death already), but I never buy it/go there until after at least one playthrough. The guide serves as a tool for re-plays. That way I get the satisfaction of having thought and worked on the game without a hand-holding from someone else, but I still can say "yeah, I found all the goodies."
From the article: After logging long hours trying various tactics, Mr. Hodgson said he asked the company whether he had explored them all, and which ones would help players rack up the highest scores.
Why is it that whenever journalists or legislators talk about video games, the phrase "high score" (or some permutation there of) is always on the tip of their tongue? I haven't played any games where score is the sole point in ages. The assumption that games are all about score not only betrays the author's ignorance, but it demeans modern video games in general. Games have become much subtler- story and the challenge of survival have become their own ends. But the media can't seem to envision them ever moving past the "survive as long as you can to get the high score" quarter munchers they descended from.